I agree. And what sucks is, as the article points out, some slightly more respected news outlets picked up the story. Their stories still online and any retractions are buried. Somewhere (NYPD) there's someone making stuff up out of the clear bus sky to associate Occupy with anything that will smear it (crime, violence, whatever). These stories can't run without that special someone at NYPD. And they're still at it. That should tell us that they still are afraid of Occupy's capabilities even though we are strictly nonviolent. Shows the power of nonviolence if they're afraid of it. Shows how big the lie is if they work this hard to smear those who are working to expose it.

I think that it's possible but, I would probably look at the New York Post as the ultimate culprit. The way that journalism has worked is that being the firstest is more important than being accurate. That has more than once kicked itself in the ass for the media. The New York Post, looking at ownership, seems to have more to lose than say the NYPD.

Citing anonymous sources is a problem even with our formally respected news sources (New York Times and Washington Post). And this is what I think is the kicker:
Kelly McBride, the senior ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute, told the Voice the Post is definitely doing this wrong:

"In a case like this, the best practices would suggest that The Post is definitely obligated to correct their mistake, both by updating the online version of the story and noting the error, as well as printing a correction in the paper to inform people who saw the mistake there."

They should be. It's like a tinderbox out there. Those polls from national news outlets that showed 40 - 50% of Americans supported Occupy in fall 2011. . . The 1% aren't dumb enough to think most of those people have changed their minds. It's amazing the big lie has lasted this long with all the real benefits going to a tiny group. The big lie can't last much longer.